A Choice Orlando Will Regret

JEFF JACOBS

With all respect to Art Quimby, Toby Kimball and even the teammate who had afforded him a place of honor at the 2004 NBA draft, Justin Evanovich wanted to make one matter clear.

``I am,'' Evanovich said, ``the leading rebounder in the history of Connecticut.''

UConn coach Jim Calhoun has said Evanovich knows more about basketball than anybody on his 2004 national championship team, and the Huskies' golden retriever also has demonstrated a sly sense of humor.

One day last season, the story goes, Evanovich and Emeka Okafor visited High Meadows, a residential treatment center in Hamden. The normally unflappable Okafor grew flustered when a teenager asked him how it felt to be player of the year.

Evanovich, who admits he never played a meaningful minute of college basketball, stepped forward and said, ``I'm taking it in stride.''

And in the midst of describing his passion for basketball and his own dreams of becoming a college coach, Evanovich stopped for a moment at Madison Square Garden Thursday night to answer what his major was at UConn.

``Basketball,'' he answered.

Of course it was.

Actually, Evanovich got his degree this spring in sociology, but he had made his point. Even his one-liner about being the school's all-time leading rebounder carried a message. He's the leading rebounder in UConn history, because he was the other guy in the gym when Okafor put in all the hours, on all those days and nights shooting, developing into the best college player in the nation. And he was here, a guest at Okafor's table, because of a friendship that blossomed over two years.

Dick Vitale was right when he said on ESPN that in 10 years the Orlando Magic are going to regret not taking Okafor first in the draft. And Jay Bilas was right in seconding that emotion, calling Okafor a shot-blocking Buck Williams and a potential Alonzo Mourning.

New Magic general manager John Weisbrod said Okafor's past back problems played a role in his decision to select Dwight Howard, but it was the high schooler's enormous potential that won him over. There is no doubt the potential is enormous. Howard could become a 7-foot small forward, he has that sort of offensive fluidity.

The kid also has metal straightening his teeth while Okafor is wearing precious metals on his ring finger for winning the NCAA title. Okafor was finishing his economics degree in three years with a 3.8 grade point average while this kid was still figuring out how he was going to pay for his prom date with future college star Candace Parker.

That stuff is all true enough. And so is Weisbrod's baffling oversight that the Magic were the worst defensive team in the NBA last year and Okafor will be an immediate force blocking and altering shots, allowing teammates to better cover the perimeter. Yet the fact Okafor is a man and Howard is still a boy is not the reason the Magic will regret this night in 10 years. The NBA draft has become a futures market of high schoolers and unknown foreigners and, by that 21st-century yardstick, the Magic's great mistake is their failure to realize how much Okafor will still improve. Their failure is they have underestimated Okafor's unparalleled will to improve.

``They underestimate the fact that Emeka has what I call unlimited potential,'' Evanovich said after Charlotte took Okafor second. ``As a freshman at UConn, you can look at the tapes and stats and see he never got the ball and scored eight points a game. They weren't running plays for him. He decided he wanted to change that.

``The genius that Coach Cahoun is, he started giving him the ball more and he started scoring more points. He never stops working on his offensive moves. He's getting better every day. I think maybe it was overlooked that he has just as much potential as every high school player. He has only been playing offense for two years.''

Nobody knows this better than Evanovich, not the NBA scouts, not the TV analysts. He was the one who rebounded Okafor's free throws. He was the one who tracked down Okafor's missed jumpers. Evanovich started doing this as a team manager. He answered phone calls in the basketball office. He was a practice player for the women's team. He finally made Calhoun's team as a walk-on.

``We weren't friends at all at first,'' Evanovich said. ``We didn't know each other that well.''

For two years, Okafor put the ball up and that ball landed in Evanovich's hands and in the end it landed him in Okafor's head. This is why Okafor went to him late in the championship season, insisted he sit with him and his family at the draft. Evanovich averaged minuscule points and rebounds, mostly in the waning minutes against the likes of Army and Quinnipiac, but here he was Thursday night among the best young basketball players in the world.

``Amazing,'' he said. ``Two-three in the draft, I'm so happy for Emeka and Ben [Gordon].''